News headlines circle a building in New York's Times Square, Thursday, April 25, 2013. The Boston Marathon bombing suspects had planned to blow up their remaining explosives in New York's Times Square, officials said Thursday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

UNDER PRESSURE: Gov. Deval Patrick, shown yesterday at Jamaica Pond, has agreed to turn the welfare records of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects over to legislators.

Gov. Deval Patrick carries a trout into the water as he joins other officials and local schoolchildren in stocking Jamaica Pond with 1,200 trout yesterday. (Staff photo by Angela Rowlings.)

The Patrick administration is still keeping the welfare records of the slain marathon bombing mastermind under wraps — after agreeing, under political and public pressure, to release the information only to a House oversight committee where it will remain a secret.

Gov. Deval Patrick’s top spokesperson said last night there is an “exception in the law” that allows the welfare records to be shown to state legislators, but that’s where the transparency ends.

“The Legislature is not allowed to share it,” said Jesse Mermell, the governor’s director of communications.

State Rep. David Linsky, chairman of the House Post Audit and Oversight Committee, gave welfare officials 24 hours to cough up how much bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his family were given in taxpayer-funded benefits.

Last night, DTA spokesman Alec Loftus told the Herald the agency will turn over the documents.

Linsky’s push for the records came amid two days of public outrage following Herald reports that Tamerlan and his wife and child, as well as his brother, accused terror bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and their family had received taxpayer-paid welfare.

“Given the gravity of the situation, I was disturbed when I read that your newspaper had requested the records and had been denied,” Linsky said. The Natick Democrat added it’s “too early to say” if the committee will ever make those records public.

Patrick also said the public may never know the welfare details of the bombers accused of killing four and wounding 260 in their Marathon Monday attack and rampage last Friday. “It’s not about a right to privacy, it’s about abiding by the law,” the governor said. “We’ll do what we can do within the law. I’m curious, too. I understand people’s curiosity.”

However, Andover lawyer Peter Caruso said by law the state is forbidden from releasing the records, but, at least in the case of the dead brother, they should be allowed to do so. “You cannot defame a dead person,” he said. “Defamation dies.”

Other legal experts say the state must own up to which laws it is using to block the public from viewing the records.

“Some of the press coverage today suggests that the state believes that there are particular provisions that bar disclosure of the benefits information completely,” said Robert A. Bertsche, lawyer with Prince Lobel Tye. “That may be true, but it seems to me that the government ought to identify the specific legal provisions that they’re relying on.”

Bertsche said while there is a law that forbids identifying welfare recipients, in 1984 the Supreme Judicial Court ruled there is an exception in cases of “public interest.”

“There’s obviously a significant public interest in whether taxpayer dollars helped to fund the Boston Marathon bombings and the murder of Officer Collier,” Bertsche said. He said there are also privacy considerations regarding Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s wife, child and surviving brother.

Linsky’s committee requested all records — including welfare applications and records of payment — for the brothers and their family.

“Depending on what the records show, we’ll follow the trail of evidence,” said Linsky, a former Middlesex County assistant district attorney.